Editing The Jungle (section)

==Reception==

The publisher hyped the book. [[Isaac F. Marcosson]] handled publicity. He sent the entire book in page proof to the [[Associated Press]], the [[United Press]], and the [[Hearst Communications|Hearst]] newspaper chain, as well as to the managing editors of each of the leading big-city newspapers. He told them they were free to quote at length when the book was officially released.  The [[Muckraker]] publishers and editors were hunting scandal and most newspapers responded eagerly with a sensational story that affected every reader.  In cities large and small all across the country the scandals were rehashed, often with page one coverage. The book sold tens of thousands of copies, and the newspapers reached millions.<ref>Isaac F. Marcosson, ''Before I Forget" (Dodd, Mead, 1959) [https://archive.org/details/beforeiforget0000isaa/page/n7/mode/2up online] pp 95–101-</ref><ref>James Harvey Young, " The Pig that fell into the Privy: Upton Sinclair's ''The Jungle'' and the Meat Inspection Amendments of 1906," ''Bulletin of the History of Medicine'' (1985) 59#4, pp. 467–480.</ref> The book produced a small fortune for Sinclair, who invested his early returns in [[Helicon Home Colony|a short-lived utopian settlement in New Jersey]].<ref>Starrett, Best Loved Books of 20th Century, p. 108</ref>

The scandal brought Sinclair national fame.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Singer |first1=Donald L. |title=Upton Sinclair and the California Gubernatorial Campaign of 1934 |journal=Southern California Quarterly |date=Winter 1974 |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=375–406 |doi=10.2307/41171421 |jstor=41171421 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41171421}}</ref> He intended to expose "the inferno of exploitation [of the typical American factory worker at the turn of the 20th Century]",<ref name= "sullivan">{{cite book |title=Our Times |last=Sullivan |first=Mark |year=1996 |publisher=Scribner |location=New York |isbn=0-684-81573-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ourtimesamericaa00sull/page/222 222] |url=https://archive.org/details/ourtimesamericaa00sull/page/222 }}</ref> but the reading public fixated on food safety as most pressing issue. Sinclair admitted his celebrity arose "not because the public cared anything about the workers, but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef".<ref name="sullivan" />

Sinclair's account of workers falling into [[Rendering (food processing)|rendering]] tanks and being ground along with animal parts into "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard" gripped the public—although it never happened.  Historians of the ethnic workers reject the  emphasis on their horrible lives and instead celebrate their successful rise in status and community building.<ref>For refutations see Dominic A. Pacyga, ''Slaughterhouse: Chicago's Union Stock Yard and the World It Made'' (2018) pp. 124-133 and Pacyga,  "From Back of the Yards to the College Classroom," in Alan M. Kraut, and David A. Gerber, eds. ''Ethnic Historians and the Mainstream: Shaping America's Immigration Story'' (Rutgers University Press, 2013) pp. 80–93,.</ref><ref>Louise Carroll Wade, ''Chicago's Pride: The Stockyards, Packingtown, and Environs in the Nineteenth Century'' (U of Illinois Press, 1987) p. 296.</ref><ref>James R. Barrett, ''History from the Bottom Up and the Inside Out'' (2017). pp 27-29.</ref><ref>James R. Barrett, ''Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago’s Packinghouse Workers, 1894–1922'' (U of Illinois Press, 1987).</ref>

The British politician [[Winston Churchill]] praised the book in a review.<ref>{{Citation | last = Arthur | first = Anthony | title = Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair | place = New York | publisher = Random House | year = 2006 | pages = 84–85}}.</ref>  [[Bertolt Brecht]] took up the theme of terrible working conditions at the Chicago Stockyards in his play ''[[Saint Joan of the Stockyards]]'' ({{langx|de|Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe|links=no}}), transporting [[Joan of Arc]] to that environment.

In 1933, the book became a target of the [[Nazi book burnings]] due to Sinclair's endorsement of socialism.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics/reasons|title=Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century|newspaper=Banned & Challenged Books |publisher=[[American Library Association]]|date=March 26, 2013|access-date=June 14, 2016 |author1=Admin }}</ref>

===Federal response===
President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] had described Sinclair as a "crackpot" because of the writer's socialist positions.<ref>{{Citation | first = Fulton | last = Oursler | title = Behold This Dreamer! | place = Boston | publisher = Little, Brown | year = 1964 | page = 417}}.</ref> He wrote privately to journalist [[William Allen White]], expressing doubts about the accuracy of Sinclair's claims: "I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth."<ref>{{Citation | orig-year = July 31, 1906 | title = The Letters | first = Theodore | last = Roosevelt | editor-first = Elting E | editor-last = Morison | place = Cambridge, MA | publisher = Harvard University Press | year = 1951–54 | volume = 5 | page = 340}}.</ref> 

After reading ''The Jungle'', Roosevelt agreed with some of Sinclair's conclusions. The president wrote "radical action must be taken to do away with the efforts of arrogant and selfish greed on the part of the capitalist."<ref>{{cite web|title=Sinclair, Upton (1878–1968)|url= http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405184649_yr2012_chunk_g97814051846491361 |publisher=Blackwell Reference Online|access-date=January 12, 2013}}</ref> He assigned the Labor Commissioner [[Charles P. Neill]] and social worker James Bronson Reynolds to go to Chicago to investigate some meat packing facilities. Contemporary humorist Finley Peter Dunne [https://archive.org/stream/dissertationsbym00dunnrich/dissertationsbym00dunnrich_djvu.txt satirized Roosevelt's reaction,] writing a story about the president being served sausages and subsequently throwing them out the window of the White House.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dunne |first=Finley Peter |url=https://archive.org/stream/dissertationsbym00dunnrich/dissertationsbym00dunnrich_djvu.txt |title=Dissertations by Mr. Dooley |date=1906 |publisher=New York, Harper |others=University of California Libraries}}</ref>

Learning about the visit, owners had their workers thoroughly clean the factories prior to the inspection, but Neill and Reynolds were still revolted by the conditions. Their oral report to Roosevelt supported much of what Sinclair portrayed in the novel, excepting the claim of workers falling into rendering vats.<ref>{{Citation | first = Jane | last = Jacobs | author-link = Jane Jacobs | contribution = Introduction | title = The Jungle | year = 2006 | publisher = Random House Publishing | isbn = 0-8129-7623-1}}.</ref> Neill testified before Congress that the men had reported only "such things as showed the necessity for legislation."<ref>{{Citation | publisher = U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture | title = Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture... on the So-called "Beveridge Amendment" to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill | id = 59th Congress, 1st Session | year = 1906 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xGU-AAAAYAAJ | page = 102}}.</ref> In 1906, the [[Bureau of Animal Industry]] issued a report rejecting Sinclair's most severe allegations, characterizing them as "intentionally misleading and false", "willful and deliberate misrepresentations of fact", and "utter absurdity".<ref>{{Citation | publisher = U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture | title = Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture... on the So-called "Beveridge Amendment" to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill | id = 59th Congress, 1st Session | year = 1906 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xGU-AAAAYAAJ | pages = 346–50}}.</ref>

Roosevelt did not release the Neill–Reynolds Report for publication. His administration submitted it directly to Congress on June 4, 1906.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/963.pdf | title = Conditions in Chicago Stockyards | year = 1906 | first = Theodore | last = Roosevelt|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20110518060002/http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/963.pdf|archive-date=May 18, 2011}}</ref>  With powerful Republicans opposing reforms that would prove costly to the packers, a compromise deal was brokered by Roosevelt that gave the reformers much of what they wanted, but not all.<ref>Young. p. 476–477.</ref>   Public pressure led to the passage of the [[Meat Inspection Act]] and the [[Pure Food and Drug Act]]. The latter established the Bureau of Chemistry, in 1930 renamed as the [[Food and Drug Administration]].

Sinclair rejected the legislation, which he considered an unjustified boon to large meatpackers. The government and taxpayers would bear the costs of inspection, estimated at $30,000,000 annually.<ref>{{Citation | last = Young | title = The Pig That Fell into the Privy | page = 477}}.</ref><ref name="sinclair">{{Citation | first = Upton | last = Sinclair | title = The Condemned-Meat Industry: A Reply to Mr. M. Cohn Armour | newspaper = [[Everybody's Magazine]] | volume = XIV | year = 1906 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yExIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA608 | pages = 612–13}}.</ref> In October 1906, he complained about the public's misunderstanding of the point of his book, in ''[[Cosmopolitan Magazine]]'', by saying, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."<ref>Bloom, Harold. editor, ''Upton Sinclair's The Jungle'', Infobase Publishing, 2002, p. 11</ref>